Junior Library Guild

• The intriguing topic and Chris Barton’s second-person narratives will draw in readers and immerse them in the action.
• Energetic graphic-novel-style illustrations introduce each story and show a critical point in the plot.
• Profiles ten people—male and female, well known and obscure—who had compelling and varied reasons for assuming fake identities. Readers will be hooked by the opening account of a sixteen-year-old who pretended to be a New York City subway motorman and successfully operated a train in 1993.
• The lively pace focuses on the masquerades’ most exciting moments. A brief section following each chapter describes what happened next for the imposter (the bibliography includes plenty of options for additional reading).
• Barton perfectly captures tense moments when a fraud seems to be on the verge of unraveling. For example, while Solomon Perel, a Jew, is posing as a member of the Hitler Youth in order to survive, his identity is questioned: “After a long silence, Mrs. Latsch asks, ‘Are you really German?’ Caught off guard, you tell the truth. ‘Please don’t report me,’ you whisper.”

School Library Journal

Barton invites readers to travel with some of the world’s greatest hoaxers, con artists, counterfeiters, and other great imposters, taking them into their deceptive minds. Ten short chapters feature clever pretenders, such as the legendary Catch Me If You Can’s Frank Abagnale, Jr., and his forays into identity theft. The chapters offer in-the-hot-seat details about these clever-minded imposters, including detailed dates and a “What Happened Next?” page. Told in a second person, the text places readers inside the fakers’ minds. However, the constant use of the words “you” and “your” gets rather annoying. Readers, especially younger audiences, might have trouble distinguishing if the stories are indeed real or not. Each chapter opens with a graphic-novel-style illustration. The fascinating stories will provide hours of amusement for those who are interested in the subject. The bibliography features many newspaper and magazine articles on each imposter for readers who are interested in pursuing the topic.—Krista Welz, North Bergen Public Library, NJ